OCTOBER 2003
-
Friday, 31st October,2003
DATELINE RESPONSE ON MAHATHIR STORY
SBS Television’s DATELINE programme rejects the published allegations of a conspiracy to undermine the reputation of jailed, former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Anwar Ibrahim.
Read more...
It has been alleged that SBS DATELINE reporter Ms Ginny Stein and the programme researcher met members of the pro-government press and representatives of Dr Mahathir Mohammad’s government/cabinet to plot against the former deputy prime minister.
Mike Carey, Executive Producer of DATELINE says, “This is completely untrue and fanciful in the extreme. Neither Ms Stein nor the researcher have met nor had any contact whatsoever with the people with whom they are accused of plotting, in the course of preparing and presenting the story. The story was inspired solely from the work done by Ms Stein and the researcher, based on material that is in the public domain.”
“Suggestions that SBS DATELINE was paid to produce this report by forces linked to the incoming prime minister are grotesque lies.”
SBS Dateline stands by the story.
SBS is one of two national government funded networks in Australia. DATELINE is Australia’s premier television programme solely devoted to international current affairs. In recent years it has been the recipient of many Walkley awards, Australia’s most prestigious awards for journalistic excellence. -
Wednesday, 29th October,2003
ARGENTINAS CORPORATE TAKEOVER
When Argentina’s economy collapsed two years ago, millions were thrown into poverty overnight. Workers saw their jobs disappear as businesses went bankrupt across the country. Thousands of those workers are now seizing these abandoned factories in a desperate attempt to secure jobs through workers cooperatives. Surprisingly they’re starting to get some political support as Elise West reports.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 29th October,2003
ABDUL RAZAK BAGINDA INTERVIEW
Dr Mahathir’s 22-year era officially ends this Friday when a new prime minister will be sworn in. To assess how this change will affect Malaysia and its relations with Australia Mark Davis spoke with Abdul Razak Baginda, the executive director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 29th October,2003
MAHATHIRS PACIFIC SOLUTION
For 20 years Dr Mahathir Mohamad has criticised Australia essentially as being an outpost of Western paternalism in a region determined to throw off its colonial past. That’s a message that resonates in Papua New Guinea at the moment where many local politicians fear that Australia is seeking to regain control. On his final overseas visit before his retirement this week, Dr Mahathir pointedly travelled to PNG. Filmed by David Brill, while Thom Cookes reports on the messages he had to deliver.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 29th October,2003
ARGENTINA: WORKERS SEIZE CONTROL
On DATELINE, screening on SBS Television on Wednesday October 29 at 8.30pm, Elise West reports on a workers’ revolution in Argentina where over 10,000 employees have seized their workplaces and are using the law to hold onto them.
Read more...
In 2001, after years of mismanagement and recession, the once wealthy Argentina went bankrupt. As the economy imploded Argentina defaulted on $US143 billion of debt and millions of people fell into poverty almost overnight.
In a desperate bid to maintain their jobs workers began to take over collapsing businesses. Typical is the Sasetru factory in Buenos Aires – one of the largest food manufacturers in South America. When the bosses abandoned the factory, leaving the workers to subsist on government rations, they decided to occupy the factory and run it as a co-operative.
Victor Vasquez, who worked in Sasetru most of his life and led the occupation campaign comments, “The only other alternative, if you don’t take over a factory, if you don’t create a source of employment is to stay at home dying of hunger and watch your children starve to death. Imagine how, in a short time, all your life plans, your family and everything else falls apart. You’re left with nothing.”
One of the models which the Sasetru workers were inspired by is the IMPA aluminium plant. Thirteen years ago, in a rare and early example of worker occupation, the factory was seized and turned into a workers’ co-operative. It has survived the current economic crisis. Eduardo Murue, IMPA worker and president of the steadily growing National Movement of Recuperated Companies, believes if the government supported the model of worker-run companies hundreds of thousands of jobs could be recovered.
While workers’ co-operatives are yet to become government policy the workers can use the law in their fight for ownership. A clause in the Argentinian constitution allows for expropriation of private property when it can be shown to be in the common good. The IMPA case created a precedent and today dozens of privately owned businesses have already been legally approved for handover to workers who have taken control.
For conservatives such as Sergio Datillo, an editor at the financial daily Ambito Financiero, the growing legal and social acceptance of the worker occupations is alarming, “I talk and have a close relationship with many business people in Argentina and they are scared.”
The Sasetru workers were evicted by riot police three months after occupying the factory. They then put an expropriation bill before parliament and succeeded in winning control of the business. -
Wednesday, 22nd October,2003
LEFT BEHIND
A storm erupted in Washington last week over an uneasy mix of religion and politics. A senior defence department official was castigated for claiming that God put George Bush into the White House to fight Satan. Controversial for some but for two American authors, religion and politics have proved astoundingly successful, clocking up book sales of 58 million. Bronwyn Adcock has more.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 22nd October,2003
US/CHINA DEBATE
When George Bush came to power he boldly declared that America no longer viewed China as a potential partner but as a competitor, and the battleground for that competition was Asia and the Pacific. For Australia there is no surer sign of this ongoing struggle for economic, political and military influence in our backyard than this week’s visits by the leader of both countries. In recent years, to America’s dismay, China has had extraordinary success in courting small Pacific countries as well as the larger Asian nations. It has also become a huge purchaser of Australian resources - a valuable trading partner which would be costly to offend. To discuss the underlying problems between China and the US in our region Mark Davis spoke earlier with Frank Gaffney, from the Washington-based Centre for Security policy - one of the most hawkish anti-Chinese think-tanks in America, but also one of the most influential. Vice-President Dick Cheney is a former board member and in their own words "an extraordinary number of their members now serve in top positions in the US government." From Bejing Dr Yan Xuetong is one of his government’s Asia Pacific experts and he serves on a multitude of defence and foreign policy advisory boards.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 22nd October,2003
THE UN & THE ANTI-CHRIST - AN AMERICAN BESTSELLER
On DATELINE on October 22 at 8.30pm, Bronwyn Adcock reports on the phenomenal success of an American book series which features the head of the United Nations as an anti-Christ figure.
Read more...
The Left Behind book series has sold over 58 million copies and the twelfth volume is currently being written. The books regularly appear in the best seller lists and in 2001 one of them, Desecration, was the New York Times best selling fiction book of the year, outselling authors such as John Grisham and Stephen King.
The books are a fictionalised account of the Bible’s Book of Revelations, but have successfully made the leap from the Christian genre into the mainstream book market. The series is now being sold by Wal Mart, the largest shopping chain in America. The books describe what is called the Rapture when all true believers are taken up to heaven and
non-Christians are left behind. The man behind the books, Dr Tim La Haye, claims to have converted many people to Christianity through these books - some of whom interpret them as the literal truth about how the world will end.
La Haye has written over 50 non-fiction books but in the case of the Left Behind series he provides detailed briefing notes from the Bible to author Jerry Jenkins, who turns them into sensationally successful novels. The books strongly reflect La Haye’s world vision which includes the belief based on Revelations that the centre of the anti-Christ kingdom will be rebuilt in Babylon, modern day Iraq. In the Left Behind series the anti-Christ helps take over the United Nations with the assistance of international financiers.
Rob Boston - spokesperson for Americans United for Separation of Church and State - says the Left Behind series strongly parallels La Haye’s preoccupations in his non-fiction books - a fear of the formation of a one world government which will attempt to dominate the United States. La Haye, according to Boston, also fears that America - including its government and school system - is being infiltrated and undermined by the malignant force of what Haye describes as secular humanism.
Boston comments, "One of the things that La Haye and others in the religious right have never been able to get into their heads is that, whether they like it or not, international co-operation is going to be more and more important to this country in years to come - yet we see that they seem to be carrying the day." He cites the case of the Middle East peace talks - "there are people who have disagreed with some of the approaches suggested because the approach might conflict with the Book of Revelations - lives are at stake here - we can’t allow this to go on because some television preacher thinks it conflicts with a thousand-year-old book." -
Wednesday, 15th October,2003
GURU OF GANJA
In California, a legal tussle is unfolding between that state and the federal government, and the man in the middle is Ed Rosenthal, otherwise known as the Guru of Ganja. He’s been legally growing marijuana for medicinal purposes for years, but the Federal Attorney-General, John Ashcroft, is determined to put a stop to the practice. The case is becoming a litmus test for states’ rights and civil liberties. Nick Lazaredes has more.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 15th October,2003
EHUD OLMERT INTERVIEW
Whatever renewed support Arafat is receiving on the ground, there’s no doubt about Israel’s opinion of him, claiming, as they do, that he is behind the terror attacks on their citizen. Mark Davis spoke earlier with Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, just before this evening’s news that a bomb had ripped through a convoy of US diplomatic vehicles in the Gaza Strip.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 15th October,2003
YASSER ARAFAT: INSIDE THE COMPOUND
There’s been intense speculation over the past few weeks about the future of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who has been confined to his quarters in Ramallah for the past 18 months. Israeli ministers have declared him irrelevant and have recently discussed his forced removal or assassination. Whatever his international reputation, those threats don’t seem to have done Yasser Arafat’s local popularity any harm. Palestinians are flocking to him in numbers he hasn’t seen in years, his compound now a magnet for Palestinian power brokers, supporters and journalists. Sherine Salama joins the throng.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 15th October,2003
SHOW TRIAL OF THE 'GURU OF GANJA'
On SBS TV's Dateline on Wednesday, October 15 at 8.30pm Nick Lazaredes reports on an unprecedented event in US legal history – a jury revolt over the sentencing of a man who distributed marijuana for medical purposes.
Read more...
In 1996, after a state-wide referendum, voters in California approved proposition 215 legalising the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Buying marijuana in California is now as easy as a trip to the pharmacy for those with approval from a doctor.
Since its inception Calfornia’s bold initiative has been the target of conservatives but it was only after George W Bush ascended to the White House – and appointed his ultra-conservative Attorney General John Ashcroft – that the attack escalated.
The Federal Government, with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) leading the charge found the California reforms to be in direct conflict with the law. To circumvent this ruling authorities in Oakland (California) designed a system to shield medical marijuana growers from prosecution by making them special officers who were exempted from Federal law.
Ed Rosenthal “the guru of ganja” and a legendary figure in the international marijuana community was one of these city officers who grew cannabis, in a non-profit capacity for registered patients – many of them suffering from terminal illnesses. Despite the apparent legality of his work Rosenthal was raided and charged by Federal authorities with cultivating and conspiracy to supply marijuana.
Incredibly, in Rosenthal’s court case, the presiding Federal judge – Charles Breyer refused to allow the jury to hear of Ed’s official capacity as an officer of Oakland City. He also refused to admit the existence of local and state laws allowing the production, supply and use of medical marijuana. The defence was effectively denied the opportunity to present a case – a situation which gravely concerned the jury.
Marney Craig a juror on the trail comments, “The trial was not fair and impartial and we were still under oath to render a fair verdict, which because of the way the trial was conducted became impossible because we were only given half the evidence.” The jury found Rosenthal guilty but when members of the jury discovered the full facts on his activity half of them publicly retracted their verdict and apologised to the man they had convicted. The jury’s revolt sent shock waves through the US Federal Court system and Judge Breyer was criticised by jurists and legal experts for his conduct of the trial.
On the day Ed Rosenthal was sentenced most of the jury turned up at court. Facing a possible twenty years in jail Rosenthal was instead sentenced to one day in jail by Judge Breyer. The Federal Authorities are now appealing against the leniency of Rosenthal’s sentence and Rosenthal is appealing against his conviction. -
Wednesday, 8th October,2003
CHAOS IN CALAIS
Last year, while Australia was in the grip of the boatpeople debate, a similar controversy was unfolding in the UK. A Red Cross shelter at the French end of the Channel Tunnel was being used as a staging post for nightly attempts to break into Britain, seen as an easier destination for asylum seekers and black market labourers. Under pressure from the British, the shelter was closed down in November. But the problem of the asylum seekers has not gone away as Fanou Filali reports from Calais.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 8th October,2003
YAHYA MAHMASSANI INTERVIEW
While Gaddafi appears keen to mend fences with the United States, it would seem he won’t be a lap dog. He’s just branded Israel’s bombing in Syria an act of "terrorist aggression". And he has threatened to resign from the Arab League - disillusioned, he claims, with the weakness of the Arab nations to confront the US and Israel. Mark Davis spoke with the Arab League’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Yahya Mahmassani, about the recent Israeli attacks in Syria and what responses the Arab states are able to mount.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 8th October,2003
THE NEW LIBYA
Back in the late ’80s when America was Saddam Hussein’s ally in his war against Iran, the pariah of the day was Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. His revolutionary rhetoric and support for radical groups accused of terrorism led to American bombings, sanctions and isolation from the world community. Times are now changing. Last month the sanctions against Libya were finally dropped. Gaddafi is now claiming that he is about to privatise the Libyan economy, join the international war on terror and welcome in the American oil giants. Matthew Carney reports on this promised turnaround.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 8th October,2003
THE NEW LIBYA
On DATELINE on Wednesday, October 8 at 8.30pm Matthew Carney looks at Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi’s bid to end the country’s international isolation.
For a decade Libya has suffered under UN sanctions for its role in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people were killed. Now Gaddafi has agreed to pay $US10 billion to the victim’s families and admitted responsibility of the act to the United Nations.
This DATELINE report details how:- To a domestic audience Gaddafi is defiant over Lockerbie claiming that the compensation money is not an admission of guilt but the price Libya has to pay for an end to sanctions and entry back into the world community.
- The finding of three Scottish judges that a Libyan (Abdelbaset Al Megrahi) was guilty of masterminding Lockerbie has been condemned by Professor Robert Black – who set up the trial. Black calls the outcome “ a wholly and utterly perverse verdict”. Many British victims’ families have also criticised the trial for the lack of information it shed on the terrorist attack and have called for a full public inquiry.
- The Lockerbie payout is the first step in Gaddafi’s plan to liberalise and privatise Libya’s economy. Gaddafi has called for 40 billion dollars in foreign investment in the next five years. With unemployment at 30% and Libya’s population expanding rapidly Gaddafi realises he needs to open the economy to the world. The war in Iraq is both a warning and an opportunity – Gaddafi does not want to go the way of Saddam Hussein and has recently put Libya’s unexplored oil fields on the market to attract oil companies frustrated by the complications in postwar Iraq.
- While to the western world Gaddafi is a pariah who supports terrorism in his own region he is seen as a champion of African and Arab causes. In 1999 he declared his own USA or United States of Africa in a bid to promote himself as Africa’s elder statesman. For Libyans however it has been an expensive failure in which they have had to finance the participation of poor African states. The acceptance of a million African jobseekers into Libya has also created enormous tension which in 2000 erupted into race riots. Thousands of Africans were forced to flee and 200 were killed.
- The United Nations listed Libya in the top third of its human development index –above Turkey and Saudi Arabia - but internal dissent is not tolerated.
- Calls by Libyans for compensation from America for the deaths of 50 Libyan civilians killed in the bombing of two Libyan cities in 1986 have been dropped. America has never issued an apology or admission of responsibility for the attack on Tripoli and Benghazi. Read more...
- To a domestic audience Gaddafi is defiant over Lockerbie claiming that the compensation money is not an admission of guilt but the price Libya has to pay for an end to sanctions and entry back into the world community.
-
Wednesday, 1st October,2003
FISHED OUT
In recent months several international reports have outlined the extent of the crisis facing the world’s oceans. Some fear that 90% of the world’s big fish are now gone. The culprit - commercial fishing. There are only a few large regions left where biodiversity still thrives, one being the far northern Pacific, off the Alaskan coast. But as Ginny Stein discovered, even in Alaska’s rich waters, all is not well.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 1st October,2003
ROLF EKEUS INTERVIEW
It’s not only politicians who are having to justify the basis for war - questions are now also being asked of the senior UN weapons inspectors who knew that Saddam Hussein no longer possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, as was constantly claimed, yet remained largely mute in the lead-up to the war. Last week, with uncharacteristic certainty, Hans Blix offered the opinion that Iraq hasn’t had any weapons of mass destruction for years. Rolf Ekeus was Hans Blix’s predecessor between 1991 and 1997. From recent US Congressional hearings it’s now apparent that his reports supplied the US with the bulk of its evidence of Iraq’s supposed weapons capability - information relevant in the mid-’90s, but, critics maintain not at the beginning of 2003. Mark Davis spoke to Rolf Ekeus earlier from his home in the Netherlands.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 1st October,2003
WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS
Later we’ll be talking with former UN chief weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus. But first, for those who maintained that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction would eventually be found, it’s been a tough week. A leaked interim report from the American-backed investigation team in Iraq suggests that no weapons have been found. More disturbingly, Harry Fawcett reports, it now seems likely they were long gone before George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard even began preparing for war.
Read more... -
Wednesday, 1st October,2003
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WEAPONS?
As the US House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee this week fiercely attacks the CIA over the poor quality of intelligence used to establish that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) DATELINE asks: What happened to the weapons?
Read more...
On DATELINE on Wednesday, October 1 reporter Harry Fawcett speaks to former Australian diplomat John Gee, one of 21 commissioners appointed to set up and run the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) which carried out inspections in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. Fawcett also speaks to Neil James, a former Australian Army intelligence officer who served as an inspector with UNSCOM.
Discussing UNSCOM’s achievements Gee says that as far back as 1994, “a great deal had been achieved in terms of the destruction of ballistic missiles, of chemical weapons and the supporting capabilities. A number of Iraqi nuclear facilities had been destroyed at this stage. And a number of people were starting to ask the question: ‘How much longer is this process going to go on and is it really necessary?’ ”
Both men go on to discuss the various ways Iraq attempted to sabotage their work but Neil James raises the question of whether America also actively undermined the work of UNSCOM.
James describes how a 1997 search for missiles in Baghdad failed - how maps supplied by American intelligence were wrong and the communications system supplied by America did not work. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has described how American spy planes did not show up as planned. James said: “There are two schools of thought: one was that it was just one of those things. And the other school of thought was that we were set up to fail.”
Scott Ritter claims that the US did set UNSCOM up for failure in order to be able to sustain the allegation that Iraq continued to have weapons. He suggests destroying the credibility of UNSCOM undermined any conclusion they might draw about the absence of weapons.
At the same time UNSCOM faced the problem that Iraq was either unable or refused to provide conclusive evidence to back many of its claims of having destroyed WMD.
Gee said: “The question I suppose that arises is – if they had nothing left – and that’s now looking to be a distinct possibility – nothing left or at least very little left – then why did they try and hide it and why didn’t they come clean earlier and save themselves a lot of trouble?”
He puts forward one possible answer: “Prior to the Gulf War, Saddam was boasting that he had chemical weapons and he had binary weapons. So for him then to turn round later on and say that he didn’t have them would call into question his own role and his claim to be the champion of the Arab cause as he saw it – whether it’s against the West or against Israel."
